Kettle False Bottom with All Pellets?

Just brainstorming here....

What if you corrugated a false bottom (edges still flat for a good seal) or even a hopstopper in the BK? The sludge would settle in the troughs, and the peaks would be much more likely to filter because there would be a thinner layer of hops settled on them......

Is this plausible?

Anyone consider this? Maybe you could just have false bottom with a ss screen "pleated" and laid over the top. That would trap the bulk of the hop sludge. If you look at pics of the hopstopper, it looks like the hop matter settled on the top and allowed the dip tube to draw wort from the bottom.

The only question I'd have is why spend the extra money on a false bottom if you're going to use screen material anyway. What's it buying you? Making a hopstopper clone isn't too hard. Then again, it doesn't work so well with 100% pellet hops especially if you chill with an immersion (add fine cold break to the mix).

I use all pellet hops and immersion chill, and I have tried a number of different methods of getting the beer out of my keggle. I have tried several types of false bottoms, fine screen collanders, and hose braids. I have gone back to a big siphon because I could never get anything to work 100% of the time.

Yeah, I've found screens to be counter-effective with hop pellets. I have a hop-taco I made (I also immersion chill) and the first time I used it with all pellets, it clogged up bigtime. I've since reconfigured the dip-tube in my BK to angle down and to the outside wall of the keggle... then I just whirlpool the hell out of it. It flows pretty freely and I get no more trub than any other way I've tried.

Adventures in Homebrewing has a new line of fairly cheap false bottoms that use slits rather than holes that i was thinking of trying in my BK...

10 " Stainless Steel Flat False bottom for keg kettles

That might work alittle better than a hop-taco/stopper and not sure of the ramifications of the slits over the normal holes

I figure the ss mesh is about $12 from McMaster, and I would just use it to enhance a false bottom. I'm thinking the mesh would be like the fist line of defense, and that it would at least keep the false bottom from completely failing. OR, I could just buy some whole/leaf hops every brew.

It's official, I have a Chillus Convolutus now...so I'm considering equipment options to limit my hops in the fermenter.

ScubaSteve, I'm doing the same thing for different reasons(cleaner yeast cakes for easier washing and less yeast loss). My idea I'm working on is a coarse hopstopper, followed by a hopback before hitting the chiller. I was looking at the wire mesh McMasters has and the variety is astounding. What mesh sizes and open percent are you looking at?

I'm interested in making a hop and break filter for my kettle as well. I'm thinking it is either this or starting back on my juicer centrifuge idea. It worked very well in place of a coffee press when I did the Hot French Randall dry hop thingy. It filters with those little coffee papers, but only can due to force. I believe I heard somewhere that those are about 40-50 microns, and supposedly tee-shirt fabric is just above 5-20 microns. I guess there are a lot of post kettle filtering options, but I would like to hear some good ideas for inside it with pellets. The Therminator demands it, lol.

WM, My thinking was the hopstopper would stop most of it and the hopback would catch the finer particles that made it out of the kettle. Since I already have the hopback I just need to build a screen for the kettle. I saw a test of the commercial HopStopper, I tired to find the link but server is down for maintenance. They used 24-26 oz of hops both pellet and leaf and it still drained all the wort. The bottom of the kettle had 1/4' of wort left in it. If you recirc back to the BK then the pellet would packup on the screen to eventually flow clear like in mashing. Just a thought

I've never found any single solution that works well. So I use hop bags, a false bottom, and a bazooka T under the false bottom. That's still not 100% . . . with pellets there's always some particles that get through. But it works pretty well.

I think the hopstopper might work until I am ready to start aeration, then I could run it through my centrifuge filter (yes my juicer) and aerate it on it's final passage through the chiller and my new aeration device for the end of the road. With the hopstopper in the kettle I should have a pretty vacant filter pad in the juicer. I had no visible hop particles when I did the HFR thing with it, so I know it filters that small at least.

I built a hopstopper clone with 60x40 mesh and it was way too fine to deal with pellet hops and cold break even with a little whole hops mixed in. A while back, I picked up some 30x30 but I still have doubts that it can deal with pellets + cold break. It would probably work well for people with external chillers AND do not recirculate back into the kettle.

Bobby, excuse my density. When you say it was too fine, did it clog? I was thinking of two layers of different mesh, one built inside the other and the diptube passing through to the center. I plan to use both pellet and leaf hoping to make a filter bed from the combination.

Yeah, it was too fine and clogged with the combination of cold break and pellet hop sludge. I had 2 square feet of filtering surface area.

If you're chilling with an IC, the best bet is to whirlpool and put your pickup off center to avoid the cone. If you chill outside the kettle, I think something extremely coarse would be best (something like 20x20 mesh). It will let some particles through, but nothing big enough to foul your chiller.

20x20...hmmmmm...

SO I'm moving to using a chillzilla. I've been using the "hop bag hanger" and while I think it's a wonderful device for filtering, I think it's really been hampering my hop utilization. I want to move towards using pellets (and whole/leaf IF I can get them) in an open boil to really extract bitterness.

FWIW, I've actually found the paint strainer bags to decrease permeability over time. They literally clog themselves, no matter how well you clean them. Maybe they melt? You can lift them out of boiling wort and they SLOWLY drain.....often very little at all. Just a giant bag of hop muck and if you recirc boiling wort through a pump and back into the bag, they literally fill and hold wort in the bag 6" above the external level (if that makes sense). They probably aren't letting as much hop oils out as they could. In the future, I might try using a coarse hop bag over a paint strainer. I don't have a plate chiller, so some particulates isn't that bad.

As to a hard-plumbed solution, I might consider 30x30 or 20x20 as Bobby suggested, placed over a false bottom. Just looking to streamline and improve the process, moving towards a solution to the all-pellet filtration problem (if we can put a man on the moon....).

I've also noted a drop in utilization in the bags. I've tried combating it by using a different 5 gallon bag per addition to increase surface area. I also tried recirculatig chilled wort back into the bag as you've mentioned and it clogs bad.

The chillzilla shouln't have much of a problem clogging. The 20x20 would probably pass a good deal of sludge through if there is no leaf hops creating a filter bed. Before you know it, we'll be adding rice hulls to the end of the boil.

My only concern about laying the mesh on top of a false bottom is that anywhere there is no large FB hole, the mesh has a dead end. I think once you decide to go with a fine mesh, you might as well form it into a taco or tube like the bazooka, but integrate the siphon tube.

Be careful that you don't attach a mesh that's too fine to your false bottom. I tried that and had a major brewing disaster.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/hopstopper-users-22684/index2.html#post221895

Ha....yeah I thought about that.......don't want any stogie brews...

Bobby- When I said I recirced back into the bag, it wasn't chilled wort. I was just recircing boiling wort to sterilize my pump/lines. I noticed the overfilling of the bag once I returned the recirc'ed wort into it and saw the bag wouldn't drain well, if at all.

When you say the chillzilla shouldn't have much of a problem clogging, you mean it's not prone to clog......right? ....right ?

No way. It's a 1/2" tube. If it passes through a march pump, it will make it through the chillzilla. That is one pricey piece of gear.

Still watching and hoping for an answer here, lol. I did the same with the hop bags filling and wasn't happy. Love how clean the hop sack hanger works, but utilization does suffer and the bag gets pretty full just with hops in it. I pumped everything out and back in the last couple of times with no clogging in my Therminator, so a chillzilla should have no problem at all. Bobby, is 20X20 about the same size as most kitchen strainer colander thingys? I'm talking the screen ones not the fixed hole type. I just have no reference for what we are talking about size-wise other than words like fly screen, hop sacks, paint strainers, and kitchen sieves, lol. I would contemplate making a two or three screen filter that is easily taken apart and cleaned during the process. Maybe something that would fit right after a hop back or integrated with the hop back.

I know the numeric indicators of mesh size is a pain to visualize but maybe this will help. 20x20 means 20 lines/wires per inch of fabric. Look at a ruler that has 16ths of an inch marked off. That would be 16x16 mesh so 20x20 is a bit finer (smaller holes). Also, the ultimate size of the openings also take into account the wire gauge or thickness and it comes in many varieties where the mesh will be floppy or stiff.

At one point, the issue of hop sludge separation consumed my day dreams and I was dreaming up all kinds of SS screen based containment. What if you made a huge rather rigid kettle liner out of a stiff 20x20 mesh, cylinder shaped, that when inserted was about an inch away from the bottom/sides of the pot. All your hop additions go inside. If you're a bulkhead drainer, the pickup would be outside of this cage. If you chill in place, the IC would go inside the cage, then lifted out prior to racking.

Crazy idea but it just might work. Look at all that surface area.

What if you made a huge rather rigid kettle liner out of a stiff 20x20 mesh, cylinder shaped, that when inserted was about an inch away from the bottom/sides of the pot

Got it and am currently adapting it to work better. When I bought my turkey frier it had a 7 gallon basket that fit inside of it for frying up god only knows what (massive batches of spuds?). I suspend it in my keggle with a couple of inches sitting above the liquid. I drop in my hops and badda-bing they boil but remain seperate from the rest of the wort. I'm currently adapting it because the holes are a little large and let some sludge through but the majority if the large hop matter is kept back. When the boil is done, I place the cage inside another pot and allow the liquid trapped in it to drain out and add it back into the kettle.

Nostrildamus said:

What if you made a huge rather rigid kettle liner out of a stiff 20x20 mesh, cylinder shaped, that when inserted was about an inch away from the bottom/sides of the pot

Got it and am currently adapting it to work better. When I bought my turkey frier it had a 7 gallon basket that fit inside of it for frying up god only knows what (massive batches of spuds?).

Click to expand...

Exaaaactly. That's exactly what I thought of when Bobby mentioned his idea. You could easily buy a large fryer basket separately. Line it with a few sheets of SS screen at $12 or so a pop, stitch it together with lockwire or something.....and you have a hardcore version of the hop hanger. No melting, no decreasing performance (hopefully). You could even put the thing in the dishwasher if you wanted

Bobby- Actually I have the Chillus Convolutus. It's a little cheaper than the Chillzilla, and I actually prefer the Convolutus because the fittings all face the same direction. It's gonna look so sweet when I get it all polished up and put in my new rig!

I'm all about this idea. I think the bigger the basket, the better. I have to move and won't be getting my stuff for a while. Dammit. I'll be watching this thread to see if someone tries it before I do.

I brewed with my LHBS owner on Monday. He has something similar. a stainless steel screen tube about 6" in diameter and tall enough it sticks out the top of his kettle. He added 5 oz of pellet. It seemed to work pretty good. He was also trying for the first time the Blichman shielded, screened tee(not sure what the actually name is). the tee did very little for the cold break(IC) there was a good amount of off white-tan particulate in the hydro sample but no green from the hops. I asked what size mesh it was but he being low tech(his term) he said this size, and held it up. The screen basket Bobby suggests would probably work very well. Also do due the rigid sides/bottom of the tube and the fact that it was the same temp as the boil, the boil carried through the screen so there should be little loss of utilization. I'm thinking a basket about the diameter of a cornie. Now just to decide on mesh size and open %.

Like Bobby said, as wide as possible, allowing for a few inches on sides and bottom. I guess the mesh should be not too coarse, not to fine.....30/30 seems like a good start. I guess you'd want it to hold the majority of fibrous/vegetative matter, but still let some of the superfine particulate through. If the mesh were too fine, we'd be back to square one. I don't think we're ever going to be able to filter the cold break.

I'd still recommend pulling the basket out and doing a strong whirlpool with about a 20 minute rest....regardless of the chilling method. Dip tube ought to be at edge of kettle vs. center.

Can't wait to try this, or at least see someone else do it

Sewing the dang thing together is the biggest pain of the project. I'd be on it right away if it were a problem for my current brewing setup. I've been increasing my hop additions a bit to compensate for the low utilization so it's not a top priority yet.

I came across this thread while searching for the ultimate hop and trub stopper. Still looking.
Would offer the following.
For those using a "hop stopper", I found it useful to do a "recirc" immediately after the boil and before chilling. I draw off about 4 cups of wort into a sterilized cup and pour back into the boil kettle. This seems to remove quite a bit of the pellet hops that make their way through. However, I chill in the kettle with a built in immersion chiller and frequently cold break will build up in hop stopper. It's minor because if not disturbed the flow is already set up by the earlier recirc. However (big comma), recently my hopstopper isn't stopping as well. I have no reason why, no holes and only a mild 2 oz of pellets in the last brew. It looked more of them made their way in than stayed out. Hence the new search.
I also tried to cover one of the dome shaped s/s devices on the market with some s/s screening. A welder friend attached it for me. Big problem, those pieces of the hops that made it beneath this screen arrangement scorched on the bottom of my kettle.
On well, onwards and upwards. If we can put a man on the moon, surely this is solvable.

As a follow up, I just bought some 30x30 ss screen. It ought to be here by this weekend. First, I'm going to try making a hopstopper. I couldn't really afford buying the basket.....(they approach the price of a kettle in the larger sizes)...If I'm totally dissatisfied with the 30x30, I'll pony up and get the basket with mesh.

Just thinking out loud....if one were to have a hopstopper that "stops".....wouldn't that effectively be the same as having a huge screened basket ALMOST as big as the kettle and then filtering out the hops by lifting and draining? I guess what I'm saying is, the hop utilization would be just the same in a kettle sized basket as compared to the kettle itself.

Hopefully the 30x30 filters neither too little nor too much. We'll see what happens.

ScubaSteve,
Did you get a chance to try out your 30/30 screen?

I brewed 10 gallons yesterday with a 9oz of pellet hops. I use a stainless scrubby over my dip tube that has worked fine the two times I used it before, but this time, I think I left a gallon in the bottom of the kettle since the scrubby clogged, the dip tube lost flow, and I lost my siphon.

I'm using a counterflow chiller, so I guess I should position my dip tube closer to the edge and just whirl pool it and not worry about some hops in the trub.
Brent

I'm always amazed at the efforts some go through in an attempt to keep hops and trub confined to the kettle and out of their fermenters. I use a false bottom in both my mash tun and my boil kettle. I do the whirpool thing at the end of the boil (when I remember, that is) and only minimal hop debris/trub winds up in the fermenter. So little, in fact, that I never give it a second thought. After racking the beer from the primary, all that I see remaining is a thick yeast cake on the bottom which appears to be quite clean. I use a counterflow chiller. I can see that there might be problems using a plate type chiller with it's narrower passages, but other than that, any debris should settle out in the primary and IMO won't do any harm. I've also read that it can actually benefit the yeast to have some of this stuff present in the primary. I use both whole hops and pellet hops depending on availability and neither have caused any problems. Maybe I'm just lucky or something.

Catt22 said:

I'm always amazed at the efforts some go through in an attempt to keep hops and trub confined to the kettle and out of their fermenters. I use a false bottom in both my mash tun and my boil kettle. I do the whirpool thing at the end of the boil (when I remember, that is) and only minimal hop debris/trub winds up in the fermenter. So little, in fact, that I never give it a second thought. After racking the beer from the primary, all that I see remaining is a thick yeast cake on the bottom which appears to be quite clean. I use a counterflow chiller. I can see that there might be problems using a plate type chiller with it's narrower passages, but other than that, any debris should settle out in the primary and IMO won't do any harm. I've also read that it can actually benefit the yeast to have some of this stuff present in the primary. I use both whole hops and pellet hops depending on availability and neither have caused any problems. Maybe I'm just lucky or something.

Click to expand...

Well, I don't strain normally, but if you're using a CFC (as the above poster is), you'll have a mess and a clogged chiller in seconds if you don't have a way to keep the hops and debris out of the chiller. I'm thinking of just using a mesh screen, since I don't have a CFC (I use an immersion chiller) but don't want to clog up my ball valve.

YooperBrew said:

Well, I don't strain normally, but if you're using a CFC (as the above poster is), you'll have a mess and a clogged chiller in seconds if you don't have a way to keep the hops and debris out of the chiller. I'm thinking of just using a mesh screen, since I don't have a CFC (I use an immersion chiller) but don't want to clog up my ball valve.

Click to expand...

Prior to installing the false bottom in my boil kettle, I simply used an SS scrubbie under the pickup tube. That worked very well for me. I'm sure that some fine particulates do make it past the false bottom or the scrubbie, but only a very small amount and that has not caused any problems. The CFC hasn't given me any trouble at all. Fine particulates pass right through it and anything of significant size is held back by the false bottom.

I'm thinking along the same lines as a false bottom Catt22, just like my mash tun. I like the idea the hops have the room to go anywhere like that. However, I would also like a finer filtration just after my chiller. Nothing like post fermentation filtration, but still something small enough to pull anything larger than smaller proteins out. I get enough oxygen and for lagers clean seems to be key (some use centrifuge cold break filters). Ales not so much, but I would like the ability nonetheless. If it were too clean, or the beer suffered I could always go back to just the false bottom. I dought I woul dbe able to filter out too much good stuff.

Wortmonger,

Not to discourage you in any way, but IMO it isn't at all necessary to filter the wort before it goes into the fermenter. I brew lagers regularly and have no problem with clarity. Everything drops out during the lagering period. I know most commercial breweries use some kind of filtration, but I think that is mostly to speed the product to market. It's too costly to perform a long cold lagering process. I usually cold condition my ales too, but for a much shorter duration than my lagers.

Here's one of 'em:

Here's a recent Classic American Pilsner that I brewed and lagered for six weeks:





...now I'm getting thirsty!

For those who use march pumps to recirculate during chilling, be careful of your flow rate! I used a mix of whole leaf and pellets on one brew, and between the suction created by the pump, and heat effect on my Northern Brewer false bottom, it literally "collapsed" my false bottom. I was able to pop it back into shape, but I learned that I could regulate the flow and encounter less problems.

Nice beers Catt22! I'm gonna start with the false bottom and see if that gets me where I need to be. What does your false bottom look like Catt22? Do you have a picture so I can see the screen size on it?

WortMonger,

I use a 10 gallon Polarware kettle as my mash tun and it's equipped with a Polarware full width false bottom like the one shown here:

40 QUART STAINLESS FALSE BOTTOM @ Williams Brewing

I have a keggle equipped with a false bottom from Nothern Brewer. I got the one with the 1/2 inch hole in the center and made my own pick up tube with copper plumbing fittings. I designed the pickup tube so that it holds the false bottom down firmly to prevent anything from getting under it. To do that, I simply cut down a coupling to make a ring that would slip over the down tube and sweated it in place. The pickup tube has a pipe union in the middle to make it easy to disconnect in order to remove the false bottom for cleaning. The union provides a positive seal and is easily loosened with a wrench. Here's a pic of the false bottom from the NB site:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/pics/fullsize/abt-false-bottom.jpg

Neither of these FB's were cheap, but they are very durable and haven't come anywhere close to collapsing even when I've had a stuck mash and sucked down hard on them with the pump. Both are very strong designs.

The reason I have FB's in both kettles is that on occasion I use the keggle to mash in for really big beers when the grain exceeds the capacity of the 10 gallon kettle. Under those circumstances I lauter into the Polarware kettle and also a second kettle. After collecting the wort, I clean out the keggle and pump the wort back into it for the boil. I only need to do this for very high gravity 11 gallon batches. The 10 gallon kettle maxes out at about 28 lbs of grain. Someday I want to get a 15 gallon Polarware kettle, but that's another serious chunk of change that will have to wait awhile.

I'll take a pic of the pickup tube tomorrow and post it so you can see how the retaining ring and union are arranged. I'm very pleased with the performance of both of these kettles.

I'm jumping in pretty late on this thread but you guys have some great ideas, I like the screen tube that seems to have potential. Here's what I'm thinking I have a false bottom in my kettle but to keep it from cloging you need a filter bed. So my plan is to make a filter bed by attaching S/S scrubbies to it. The scrubbies are cheap enough 2 for $1 at the dollar store. Pro's Con's What do you think?